Lying Heart
The next morning when Peter wakes up for school, he puts the tiniest bit of pressure on the doorknob, to see if it will give way under his hand. Nothing. He squeezes it a little harder, then immediately feels foolish, standing at his door and squeezing a doorknob for all it's worth. It's very clear that his abilities have not returned. Peter exhales loudly in frustration, letting the doorknob go with an unnecessarily loud clatter.
He said hours. He said Peter's abilities would be back within hours. Either the man was lying, or he was a complete and total idiot, but none of Peter's speculation changes the fact that he is now utterly useless.
He considers going back to the basement after school to demand that the man explain exactly what it was he did to Peter, but the idea of going back there so soon makes him uneasy, and besides that he promised Gwen they could go somewhere and talk about what happened over the few days he was gone.
As he heads out the door for school, he tries without much success to assure himself that it's alright to let Spiderman lay low for awhile. Not only has he not had enough time to construct a new suit, but everyone seems to be fairly certain that Spiderman is either missing or dead, after the past week of him being nowhere in sight. Nobody is expecting much of him under the circumstances—and, to Peter's relief, nothing in the papers reports anything about more about robot attacks. He hopes for now that that is the end of it.
Once he reaches school Peter realizes that it's the last day before Christmas break. It's an absurd reason for him to cheer up slightly—he isn't a very religious person, and with his highly-logical, scientifically-driven parents, he stopped believing in Santa and magic when he was five years old—but something about the idea of the holidays makes everything seem a little less terrible. Students are wearing Santa hats and reindeer headbands, all the girls are carting around baked goods and wrapped presents, and during more than one of his classes the teacher puts on a holiday-themed movie and leaves them to their own devices.
Most of the students skip out, but Peter kind of likes sitting here in the dark eating up the government's tax dollars by watching It's a Wonderful Life during his free track with Gwen sitting in front of him. At some point he watches her nod off slightly, then catch herself and jerk her head up. This happens a few times, until he's fairly certain she has fallen asleep.
The lights snap on and Gwen doesn't lift her head up. Peter tries not to laugh because he doesn't want to call any attention to her.
He leans in close to her desk. He has forgotten what this was like—the weird, unexpected thrill of seeing Gwen at school. He remembers the moments he would see her before she would see him, and he'd catch a glimpse of her deep in thought in a hallway, or reading a book, or opening her locker. He loved these moments because he got to see the way her face lit up when he came into her line of sight, the way she smiled this goofy little smile, the kind he knew was exclusively for him.
She's so pretty, sitting there with her eyes closed, her cheeks jammed against her propped up hands. He wants to tuck the loose hair falling in her face behind her ear, or kiss the top of her head. Instead he says gently, "Gwen."
She frowns a little bit in her sleep.
He touches one of her arms. The feeling is electrifying. "Hey, Gwen," he says a little louder.
She opens her eyes just slightly, barely perceiving him. She smiles that goofy little smile he knows so well. And then she jerks up in her seat and says, "Oh, shit! Did I—"
"Miss Stacy," says the teacher warningly from the front of the room.
Peter is practically holding his breath trying not to laugh. Gwen swats him, grinning, and says, "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"What do you think I was just doing?" he asks, unable to suppress the laughter any longer.
"Class is over now, mister helpful," she drawls, grabbing her books from her bag. "What are you even doing in here, anyway?"
"Free track," says Peter. "And I like this movie."
"You had a free track at the end of the day, and instead of going home you sat through half of It's a Wonderful Life?" Gwen asks. When Peter responds by grinning cheekily, she rolls her eyes and says, "You've never been quite right in the head, have you, Peter Parker?"
The way she says it is so familiar and natural that Peter stops short for a moment. It's been so long since he's felt this kind of ease with her, this teasing back and forth exchange that they had even before they knew each other all that well. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows he isn't supposed to be talking to her like this, but right now he doesn't care. Right now he isn't Spiderman—he couldn't be Spiderman even if he tried. And for the first time since his abilities stopped working, Peter feels some sense of relief, as if the burden of the promise he made to the captain has been temporarily lifted.
It doesn't count, he assures himself. It doesn't count because for however long this lasts, Gwen isn't in danger, because the danger simply does not exist.
"I know what's wrong with you," says Peter as-a-matter-of-factly as they leave the classroom.
She raises an eyebrow at him. "And that is?"
"You need caffeine."
She wrinkles her nose. "I hate coffee."
"You do?" Peter shuffles awkwardly, backtracking when he realizes he's missed his locker.
"With a passion."
"Oh," he says, putting his books away, feeling a slightly embarrassed heat creep up in his face. He hides the evidence by burying himself further into his locker.
"Oh!" She perks up. "You wanted to get coffee or something?"
He opens his mouth to speak but swallows reflexively first, in a less than slick fashion. "I mean, you hate coffee, but yeah, I mean, if you want to." Peter clears his throat. "You could always get, like, a high fructose maccacinno-whatever it's called. Those big chocolatey things."
"They do have those fancy Christmas cups at Starbucks," Gwen muses.
"That should have been the hard sell," says Peter. He shuts his locker door and stands there for a moment, and asks cautiously, "You're sure you don't have anywhere else to be?"
"No," says Gwen immediately, "I'm all set. Starbucks down the street?"
"Yeah," says Peter, grinning so widely a cut on his lip splits open. He swipes at it, but doesn't care all that much, really—he's too busy imagining Richard calling Gwen's cell phone, imagining him leaving her a string of clingy text messages and showing up at her door only to be turned away because Gwen isn't home. Peter is still fully aware that she and Richard were supposed to study together today, even if Gwen doesn't mention it, and the idea of him wondering where she is and who she is with makes him a lot happier than it probably should.
Gwen orders a hot chocolate and Peter orders a coffee with extra caffeine shots in it. He still hasn't slept since he got back from the ordeal. They sidle into a booth tucked away toward the back, and the moment after they both sit down they look up at each other, and Peter can't help the crooked smile on his face.
For the first half hour or so they talk about their Christmas plans. Gwen tells him she is traveling further upstate to visit some of her mom's relatives between Christmas and New Year's. She tells him about how impossible it is to Christmas shop for three brothers and a mother with such fickle taste in everything. She tells him that she's been so busy lately that she hasn't even had a chance to window shop on the impressive strip of Christmas department store displays.
Peter doesn't have as many plans or people to shop for. He tells her how he and Aunt May watch all the same movies every year and try to make their own popcorn, which inevitably ends up burning beyond edibility and setting off their deafening fire alarm. He tells her about their matching Christmas socks, and she laughs at him so loud that people turn around to stare.
What neither of them says, however, are the things that will occupy them the most over the holidays: the loss of Uncle Ben and Gwen's father. It's only been a few months, and while the grief has become easier to squelch as time passes, Peter knows the holidays will usher in a whole new wave of sadness and nostalgia. He knows Gwen is feeling the same way, and he wonders why they don't say anything about since they are the only two people who could possibly understand each other's pain, but he thinks that maybe that's just it—they understand each other's pain, and so they understand that it's better to just not say anything about it at all.
When they reach an appropriate pause in the small talk, Peter stares down at his half-empty coffee and says, "About the past few days."
Gwen sits patiently and waits for him to continue.
"I'm not really sure where to start, actually," he says. "But I guess … well, you knew about the lasers, and the antidote." He looks up and she nods at him, motioning for him to continue. "Is there anything else you can tell me about them?"
She sighs. "I would have already, if I could," she says, sounding disappointed. "The only reason I even knew in the first place was because my initial internship post at OsCorp was in the weapons lab, and I remember their development was a really big deal at the time."
"But how did you—how did you even know that those were the lasers on the robot?"
She shrugs, making a face. "I've generally come to find that when you can imagine a worst case scenario with giant robots, you're never really that far from the mark." She swirls a spoon in her cup. "In all honesty, though, I saw a design laid out for a military-grade artificial intelligence project that looked eerily like the one in the picture. The project was either scrapped or sent somewhere deeper into OsCorp personnel before I transferred departments, because I never heard anything about it again." She smirks a little bit. "I don't think I was even supposed to see the plans in the first place—you're not the only OsCorp sleuth, you know."
"I'm surprised at you, Gwen," he says. "Shocked, even."
When he meets her eyes he sees her expression is serious. "I've been looking into it, you know," she says. "I haven't found anything yet, but even OsCorp can't keep information buried like that forever. I'm trying to find anything connected to the project—names, records, designs, anything that could help, but so far nothing has surfaced."
Peter can't help but smile at her. He knows he would do the same for her if their situations were reversed, but he can't help but feel touched by the gesture. "Thank you, Gwen."
She pushes her headband back self-consciously. "Don't thank me. I haven't found anything helpful at all."
"I mean it. Thanks." He drops his eyes, before their gaze gets too intense.
"Peter," she says, her voice quieter. "Are you going to tell me what happened this past week?"
He thought it would be easier to talk about it here in a crowded place, where he has nothing real to fear and a room full of people to prevent him from getting overly-emotional when he's talking about it, but suddenly it's all wrong, being here in this cheery, bustling place and admitting the humiliation of his capture. He crunches his empty coffee cup in his hands.
"You, uh. You wanted to look at the display windows, right?" Peter asks. "We should go. I mean, I want to, if you still want to, and you've got time, and everything. Do you want to—do you think you—"
"Sure," she says. The look in her eyes makes it very clear that she hasn't dropped the subject, but for now she picks up the remnants of her hot chocolate and tosses it in the trash. "I'd love that."
They walk down the street together, their cheeks pinched and their hands jammed into their jacket pockets, and even though Peter knows that this isn't ideal by a long shot, even though he knows he knows that it is only a matter of time before reality crashes back in, he will settle for this. He will settle for this suddenly blissful, happy idea of normal, because he knows that once his abilities kick back in, he will never have it again.
Y'all owe this chapter to my littlest sister. I was so freaking excited to get off work and see Spiderman in theaters again but on my way out the door I received a frantic call reminding me of my update duties. She also says she just bought me a Spiderman duct tape roll and notebook. I've got some awesome sisters (the other is TOTALLY saving my ass on writer's block, but more praise for her to come later when we get to the parts she is responsible for).
So here it is, folks. I'm off to drool at Andrew some more. BYE.